We booked our flights through Celebrity and these included transfers to and from the port. We were allocated BA flights from Gatwick which suited us fine. We took the opportunity to pre-select our seats at BA.com and did the online check-in the day before and printed off our boarding passes which meant we only had to drop our bags once we got to the airport. On arrival at Rome the Celebrity rep was waiting for us once we'd cleared passport control. She told us which luggage belt was ours and where to deposit our bags for onward transition. Once we'd done this, another rep led us out to the buses for transfer to the port. All very efficient. At the port there were different lines for Suites, Aqua Class etc. and they moved very quickly. Just after 1pm we were on our balcony drinking our welcome champagne. TIP: Check in online and print out your Xpress pass beforehand as this will save time at the port.

We booked Aqua Class and had stateroom 1531 on deck 11. This was a good location, a few steps from the forward lifts and a short walk to the Relaxation Room and the "secret" spiral staircase to the spa at the end of the corridor. The room was a little larger than we were expecting with the bed near the bathroom. Ideally, we could have done with a little more storage. The cupboards over the bed are not easy to reach if you are short! In contrast, the bathroom had plenty of cupboard and drawer space and the shower was wonderful. Small Niggle: the bedside tables are far too small, especially when one of them has the telephone on it which makes it virtually useless as a table. This is a design flaw as there is plenty of room for them to be a bit larger. Also, I found the shape of the glasses in the room difficult to hold, in fact I dropped and broke one of them.

Most people head to the cafe or Bistro on 5 for lunch but as we had eaten on the plane we were quite happy to sit on the balcony drinking our champagne, eating our fruit and watching the other ships come and go. These included 2 wonderful Star Clippers in full sail and a very colourful Moby ferry which had cartoon characters painted all over it. Our bags arrived within an hour or so and once we'd unpacked we headed off to explore the ship, ending up on the Solstice deck with a rum punch for sailaway. Read more